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Sociolinguistics from the Periphery "presents a fascinating book about change: shifting political, economic and cultural conditions; ephemeral, sometimes even seasonal, multilingualism; and altered imaginaries for minority and indigenous languages and their users."

This book, intended both for advanced students and scholars of linguistics,traces past and current approaches to constituent structure. This is the secondedition of the book, covering a lot of ground in over 300 pages. In this study,Carnie discusses the current thinking on the topic of constituent structure,both cross-linguistically and cross-theoretically in natural language syntax.Focusing on crucial topics in syntax and morphology, he surveys a wide range oftheories and frameworks, including Chomskyan theories like TransformationalGrammar (TG), the Standard Theory (ST), the Extended Standard Theory (EST),Principles & Parameters (P&P), including Government & Binding theory (GB) &Minimalist Program (MP); and five other generative theories like RelationalGrammar (RG), Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG), Tree Adjoining Grammar (TAG),Generalized Phrase-Structure Grammar (GPSG), Head-Driven Phrase-StructureGrammar (HPSG). Role and Reference Grammar (RRG), and Arc-Pair Grammar alsoreceive some attention. However, this is not a basic book in syntax and thereader of this book is expected to have some (basic) background in syntax, andideally a more detailed background in some major version of generative grammar.The book has 12 chapters in 3 parts: part 1 (chapters 1-4) contains'Preliminaries'; part 2 (chapters 5-7) includes 'Phrase Structure Grammar andX-bar theory'; and part 3 (chapters 8-12) discusses 'Controversies.' There isalso a list of abbreviations and symbols used, a preface to the revised edition,and a general preface.

Chapter 1 is an introduction to the book. Carnie nicely describes what the bookis about, the organization of chapters, and the intended readers of the book. Healso gives a note on the advantages/ setbacks of using a huge number oftheoretical frameworks for the discussion.

In chapter2, Carnie points out the problems of viewing constituent structure assimple linear concatenation. By implementing different hypotheses, such asconcatenation as addition, the structured concatenation and regular grammars forthe consideration of constituent structure, Carnie points out regular grammars'inefficiency to account for embedding and non-local dependencies. He presentsChomsky's (1957) argument that traditional grammars fails to capture the basicfacts of constituency, non-local dependencies, and structure dependencies. Theyalso miss important insights from semantics about compositionality, modificationrelations and ambiguity that can be drawn when a hierarchical constituentstructure is assumed. So, finally he settles for a hierarchical constituentstructure.

Chapter 3 discusses the mathematical properties of tree structures with respectto hierarchical and linear specifications of grammatical elements. Carniediscusses the basic properties of tree in terms of dominance and precedence. Hecharacterizes domination in terms of reflexivity, antisymmetry, and transitivityand discusses how the notion of a constituent can be defined in terms ofexhaustive immediate domination. He notes the complementary relation betweendominance and precedence.

In chapter 4, Carnie discusses the notions of c-command and government, whichare specific to GB and MP. He gives a comprehensive discussion ofconstituent-command (c-command), taking into account Kayne's (1984) principle ofUnambiguous Path. A number of formal properties of command relations are alsodiscussed.

Chapter 5 deals with phrase structure grammar, discussing the concepts ofcontext-free and context-sensitive grammar. Carnie shows that it is possible torepresent a Finite State Automaton (FSA) using the notation of PSG. He discusseshow different theoretical frameworks use PSG for different purposes, such astop-down rewrite rules (early generative grammar), structure creatingprojections (GB & MP), constraint-based rules that filter out tree structures(GPSG & LFG). He contrasts the earlier mechanism of the top-down nature of PSrules with the current bottom-up view, which he calls the projectionist view,and states that a terminal-to-root approach is easier than the root-to-terminalapproach in distinguishing possible ambiguities in constituency.

In chapter 6, Carnie examines extended PSG, focusing on structure-changingtransformations and structure-building ''generalized transformations,''introducing abbreviatory devices in PS rules such as the brace notation (whichallows for mutually exclusive choices), and parenthesis (which allowsoptionality). He also outlines how PSG is treated in GPSG and LFG; and discussessome of the extensions to PSGs, including transformations, feature structures,meta-rules, functional equations, Immediate Dominance/Linear Precedence format,meaning postulates and lexical rules.

In chapter 7, Carnie discusses X-bar theory (beginning with the rationale ofit), its historical development and various versions of it. He elaborates on theX-bar version of grammatical relations, the notions of specifier, head,complement, and adjunct. He also discusses X-bar structure in relation tofunctional projections in various generative frameworks and claims X-bar theoryto be a powerful tool for describing the hierarchical structure of sentences.

The last section examines critical controversies in the treatment of constituentstructure. It mentions a number of alternatives to strict compositional phrasestructure.

Chapter 9 takes up syntactic dependencies and questions of constituency. Carniediscusses examples in several non-Minimalist frameworks. LFG focuses onfunctional-structure or f-structure, while Relational Grammar emphasizesgrammatical functions only. Mapping categories onto other categories, CategorialGrammars are based on functional application, while mapping trees onto trees,Tree-Adjoining Grammars use generalized transformations. Head-DrivenPhrase-Structure Grammar lays emphasis on feature structures, while thematicrelations get utmost importance in Dependency Grammar, in Role and ReferenceGrammar, and in Case Grammar. Functionalist Grammar assumes that the basicrepresentation of sentences is a variant of formal logic; Construction Grammarand Cognitive Grammar are concerned with the general cognitive principles thatmap between memorized conventionalized expressions and their extensions. Inthese frameworks, instead of constituent trees, we have templatic constructionsor schemata, into which words are mapped.

Chapter 10 presents yet more exemplifications of not applying a strictcompositional phrase structure. Line crossing, multi-domination,multidimensionality and multiplanar structures of phrase structure trees areconsidered, based on evidence from discontinuous constituents, scrambling,argument sharing, and cross-modular bracketing paradoxes.

Chapter 11 deals with functional categories with a focus on recent proposals inthe Minimalist Program. Carnie claims that VP, IP, CP in Chomskyan PhraseStructure and the equivalents of them in other frameworks are the greatestdiscoveries in linguistics (p.221). The chapter addresses questions about thecategorical and structural constituent of constituent systems.

By mapping out the state of the art in the field of constituent structure, thisbook is an excellent survey of Phrase Structure in generative grammar. Carnie isopen-minded in presenting different theoretical frameworks that have contributedto our understanding of phrase structure. Beside GB, Minimalism, and Bare PhraseStructure Grammar, GPSG and HPSG are also discussed to a good extent, while LFGis not discussed much. A plus point of the book is that it always provides luciddetails. Carnie surveys and discusses many concepts that are controversial,describing all the sides of a question and leaving it on the readers to judge ontheir own. The inclusion of many useful figures and tree-diagrams serves tocapture the discussion in a concrete manner for the reader.

However, there are certain shortcomings as well. Although the book plans tosurvey quite a number of theoretical frameworks, it deals mostly with Chomskyanframeworks, and other frameworks are given much less importance. Even withinthe Chomskyan framework, no detailed arguments are given for why the theoryunderwent many important changes. This may be due to space constraints, and thereader is assumed to have some prior knowledge in the field.

In certain places, Carnie does not present alternative analyses of a phenomenonin detail. In chapter 2, while discussing regular grammar, Carnie points outFSA's inefficiency to account for central-embedding and non-local dependencies.However, as regular grammars are the most highly restricted class of PSGs, theaddition of a discussion on the different layers of Chomsky hierarchy includingrecursively enumerable (unrestricted grammar), context-sensitive grammar,context-free grammar would have been better.

Chapter 4 is focused on c-command and government (which is pro-GB theory). Ofcourse, beyond c-command, the discussion of other command relations likeM-command, K-command, S-command, NP-command, IDC-command, etc. is quitevaluable. However, I think that in this section Carnie could have includedcommand notions in other frameworks, such as relative obliqueness (O-command)rather than configurational superiority (c-command) in HPSG; f-command in LFG,which is defined over functional-structures, rather than over constituentstructures. In example (45) -- ''Government: A governs B iff a) A c-commands B;b) There is no X, such that A c-commands X and X asymmetrically c-commands B'' --Carnie provides a definition of ‘government' and mentions it as an incompleteone, but he does not clarify in detail in which way it is incomplete and whethersuch a definition can be implemented in all situations, e.g. in amultiple-branching tree.With regard to chapter 5, although Carnie supports a bottom-up approach over atop-down approach, I think it is worth mentioning that in the case of parsing,although it has been believed that simple implementations of top-down parsingcannot accommodate direct and indirect left-recursion and may requireexponential time and space complexity while parsing ambiguous context-freegrammars, more sophisticated algorithms for top-down parsing have been created,e.g. by Frost, Hafiz, and Callaghan (2007), which accommodate ambiguity and leftrecursion. Their algorithm is able to produce both left-most and right-mostderivations of an input with regard to a given context-free grammar.In chapter12, the discussion on Minimalist Dependency Grammar is too short andcreates a number of queries. In this chapter, I think, the Spec--to--Head proberelation also could have been discussed, as ''specifier'' has a very differentrole in the current state of the theory, unlike the head-spec relation in theX-bar theory. Chomsky (2004: 111-112) claims that ''a Head--to--Spec relation […]cannot exist (nor the broader symmetric Spec--Head relation, in the generalcase).'' The only relation that is approved is a Spec--to--Head probe. Jayaseelan(2008, p.104) also claims that ''Merge, the basic operation of syntax, can bemaximally simple if we do away with ''specifier.'' It would have been valuable tonote this further detail.

Being the second edition of the book, this new version includes a new finalchapter (ch.12) with some of the latest information about constituent structure.Along with a number of additional changes, Carnie has corrected a number oferrors found in the first edition of the book, including some of the formaldefinitions, technical errors, reference errors, and typos. The revised versionhas become a really impressive and valuable work. Overall, the book provides the researchers and students in syntax, morphologyand related aspects of grammar a vital source of information. It is an excellentreference book not only for the variety of issues and various up-to-dateapproaches it covers, but also for its way of presentation.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER:
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Kalyanamalini Sahoo is an Assistant Professor in linguistics at the
Department of Linguistics & Contemporary English at English & Foreign
Languages University, Hyderabad, India. Her research interests lie mainly
in computational morphology and syntax.